Reading Feedback

I read through my feedback comments on my storytelling. One of the things that I need to work on is structuring my stories to fit a certain theme. I feel like I have a theme in mind when I begin to write the story, but then I become side-tracked as soon as new ideas pop up. I should really reread my posts before publishing to see if I achieved my original theme. I can then eliminate random and extraneous plots in my storytelling. I also need to work on dialogue with my characters. Whenever I write a story, I also tend to write in first-person or in third-person without any dialogue. It's odd that I find including dialogue to be unnatural because I'm writing instead of listening. Another thing that bothers my about using dialogue is that I tend to overuse the word "said." He said. She said. I said. Said is dead. To improve, I need to find other ways to say "said." For instance, I can say she exclaimed, he shouted, I muttered, he whispered, she cried, and all sort of synonyms. When I used other verbs, it also gives a better visual of how a person is saying their comment. He cried gives a dramatic, depressing tone while she shrieked gives an intense and suspicious tone. I really appreciate the feedback my peers have given me.

Just a funny twist on my dialogue problem. Source.